


Road's End

by Forrester_Writes



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4, Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Commonwealth, G.E.C.K., Gen, Synth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-11 23:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19119565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forrester_Writes/pseuds/Forrester_Writes





	1. Bi-Hero

**“It’s said war - war never changes. Men do, through the roads they walk. And this road… has reached it’s end.” - Ulysses, Fallout: New Vegas (Lonesome Road)**

( **Male Courier - James** / NCR Allegiance / Idolised by Boomers, BoS and Goodsprings / Vilified by Powder Gangers, Legion / Nuked Legion in LR)

( **Male Sole Survivor** **\- August** / Minutemen Allegiance / BoS and Railroad survive / Institute nuked)

Not much is known about the Courier, aside from the fact his actions changed the course of history in the Mojave Wasteland, for good. No one is really sure where he went after the battle of Hoover Dam, though most people’s money was on the fact he went home. Throughout his time in the Mojave, where exactly his home was had been subject to doubt. Not just by those around him, but by the Courier himself. It is thought that he found what he was looking for in The Divide, or rather, found something he didn’t know he was looking for. The NCR lost track of the Courier shortly after he helped them win back the Dam for a second time. It was thought he wandered off into Legion territory to the east, to see first hand the chaos his actions had wrought, though nothing is certain. 10 years after the battle of Hoover Dam, news or even rumours of the Courier were scarce and nearly always false. He was long gone, and yet, that legacy remained. The year was 2291 and select members of the NCR had been looking for him ever since. So it then comes to be, that the Courier, or someone matching that description shows up in Massachusetts. The biggest question was ‘what had he been doing?’ in the time he’d gone, or why exactly he’d travelled the length of the United States of America. Many wondered if the Courier had resumed his role as a delivery boy, or whether he’d moved onto bigger and better things.  
  
No one knows, of course. I’d hazard a guess, but I’d drive myself crazy trying to work out exactly which theory was accurate. We’d heard about the actions of the Courier all the way out here on the East Coast. The New Vegas Strip was notorious, even out here, depending on who you spoke to. Boston wasn’t without it’s issues, but there was a certain charm in hearing about the heroes solving the problems of elsewhere. Obviously, nothing was as clean cut as one man saving the world, my story had proved that. I had considered travelling the Wasteland and all that remained of the USA, but somehow, this place still felt like home. I needed a push, I needed a reason. The Institute was gone now and I found myself suddenly lacking purpose. I was a 245 year old pre-war sniper. I had been out of my element since I woke up in the world. That hadn’t changed. I remember my first day in the hellhole I now call home, and I will most certainly remember my last. June 3rd, I was sat looking over the railing across Diamond City. I still bothered to make the trip down here, sometimes. I would walk through the decrepit streets and people would whisper, but no one knew who I really was. That was the way I liked it. It was good. I liked the anonymity of it all. I was the man that had ridded them of the institute. I was still deciding if that was a good choice. They weren’t all bad, but they most certainly weren’t all good. Nick and I had set our attentions back to the Detective Agency, after all our other significant business was set to rest. We saw people of all stripes. It was part of what made the job so interesting.  
“This is Diamond City?” A man asked, pulling himself up to the railing next to me. His accent was one I recognised, but from before the war. He was wearing a faded red beret with the emblem of a two headed bear embroidered on it.  
“I’m surprised you got in if you weren’t actually sure.”  
“It doesn’t look like a great green jewel.”  
This earned a smile, if only a small one.  
“No it doesn’t.” I turned to him, “you’re from the West Coast, right?”  
He cocked his head, evidently confused. “Accent.” I said, answering his unspoken question, “what brings you all the way out here?”  
“Questions.” He replied, looking out onto the expanse of the city, “I’ve spent years travelling the country trying to find answers to them.”  
“You’ll have to be a little more specific.” I chuckled, attempting to solicit a more advanced response.  
“I travelled here in hopes of tracking down something I delivered a few years ago. It was something small, pre-war.”  
“Like a phone? Camera? Mr Handy?”  
“No.” He shook his head solemnly, “do you know what a G.E.C.K. is?”  
“Isn’t that what they used to finish Project Purity in the Capital Wasteland?”  
“Yes.” His eyebrows knitted, “I think so, anyway.”  
“They’re some kind of terraforming device perfected by Vault-Tec, right?”  
“Garden of Eden Creation Kit is their full name. Not many exist, even fewer will still work.”  
“Wouldn’t that be a good thing? What has you so worried about that?”  
“I shouldn’t really be talking to you about this. I came to Diamond City to find answers, not create more questions.”  
“I can help you answer some of them, trust me.” I chided. I guess to some, it might come off as cocky, “I’m with Valentine’s Detective Agency, and honestly, in that capacity I’m sure I can help you.”  
“Detective huh?” He snorted, “like, the old trench coat and fedora get-up, or…”  
“Something like that.” I smirked, remembering my partners favoured look, “Nick’s the one that wanders around in the trench coat, though.”  
“Nick?”  
“Nick Valentine. He owns the Agency. I’m just his partner.”  
“I’m James, by the way.” He extended a hand, “I’m from Vegas.”  
“August.” I grasped his hand, shaking it, “former General of the Minutemen.”  
“I thought you were a Detective?”  
“I am.” I smiled confidently, “I used to work with the minutemen, though before…”  
“Before you blew up the institute?”  
“How did you…?”  
“It doesn’t take a genius.” he sighed, “but seen as it was your organisation, if not you personally, that destroyed the institute, maybe you can help me.”  
“Would you like to take this to the office or…?”  
“That sounds acceptable.” He nodded to himself, almost calculating the pros and cons of the arrangement. He seemed serious, yet weighed down. He must have been in his early forties, or at least his late thirties. His hair was beginning to grey and his forehead had deep creases when he frowned, and when he smiled there were defined lines. He wasn’t young, but he most certainly wasn’t old.  
I pushed myself away from the barrier, making sure James was still behind me, I led him down to the lower stands of Diamond City. It wasn’t the prettiest to look at and it most certainly didn’t represent unity and community as well as other post-war settlements did, but it was home and it was trying to be better. That was always enough for me. I constantly kept looking over my shoulder, just making sure he was still following. He wasn’t paying much attention to me, but he was to the city that surrounded him. It was my guess that he hadn’t been in the West long. He seemed fascinated by people simply living their lives. If he truly was from Vegas, Diamond City would either be a welcome change or a turn for the worse. It wasn’t perfect, but no one could deny that it was trying. He stopped following at times to admire the contents of the stalls. Most were the same, they hadn’t changed. Percy had just taken his place outside the Surplus and Solomon was still trying to peddle his economy-value chems. Something about the open market seemed to captivate him.  
  
After a while, he would once again follow, once his brief curiosity had been sated. I held the door to the Agency open for him, and he entered. He watched me carefully as he walked over the threshold, almost uncertain as to what I would do now I had him on my turf. I hadn’t underestimated just how much of a leap of faith this was, if his story held any truth anyhow. I closed the door behind me, the metal clicking back into place with an unhealthy groan. I urged the man to take a seat, as I yelled up the stairs for Nick. The grizzled old Synth came sauntering down the stairs, evidently displeased. James flinched, having evidently never seen a synth. He sucked in a breath, pressing himself back into the chair ever so slightly. He turned to me slightly, looking for some form of confirmation or reassurance, and yet failed to take his eyes away from the Synth.  
“Nick’s a Synth, he won’t bite.” I said, trying to hold back laughter, “he was always independent from the institute as well, so you’re safe.”  
“I’ve never…” He sat up slightly to look at Nick more closely, “do you mind if I…?”  
He stood up, approaching Nick cautiously. “I’m not here to be examined like some freak show exhibit. I’m here to solve whatever case you have for us.”  
“Of course. Of course.” He apologised, “I’m sorry. I do have a case for you, but I’m not sure whether it’s something you can deal with.”  
“Try us.” I challenged, putting both my legs up across the desk. Nick eyed them disapprovingly, but failed to comment upon it. “About a decade ago I worked as a courier. I tended to take jobs along the West Coast, back down near Vegas, where I think I grew up…”  
“You’re not sure where you grew up?” I asked incredulously, “how do you even manage that?”  
“I was shot in the head.” He sighed, “it’s a long story, but I delivered something in particular that I only realised the true purpose of a short while ago.”  
“…and that is?”  
“I asked you if you knew what a G.E.C.K. was, and you did.” He began, “well, I was hired to deliver a very specific, and oddly unique piece of something similar to G.E.C.K. technology and I wasn’t sure what the purpose of it was. I had always thought it was the final piece of some variant of that, until I found the plans for making a G.E.C.K.. This piece was similar, but had a different function. Now I think I know what the piece was for.”  
“Don’t keep us in suspense, James, come on.”  
“I think it was part of a device that was intended to cleanse the new world of irradiated and mutated life when the first of the vault dwellers emerged. Vault-Tec didn’t give it a name, but it was in production in the same league as the G.E.C.K. which means the parts for it can fly under the radar.”  
“The idea seems plausible. I suppose there’s more to it?”  
“When this device initially in development, they didn’t account for the people who had survived on the surface without the aid of the vaults. Everyone who wasn’t born in a vault has corrupted or mutated DNA to some degree. If this was activated, it would wipe out the majority of the life in the Wasteland and it would just keep spreading. Vault-Tec never finished it.”  
“If Vault-Tec never finished it, what’s the problem?”  
“It was resurrected by a couple of Enclave scientists as a last-ditch attempt at achieving their goal of eradicating the impure.”  
“and now they have all the pieces?”  
“I’m not sure.”  
“well… shit.” I sat back in my chair, in pure astonishment, “we better get on that.”


	2. Today Is Gonna Be The Day

"Do you know who he is?" Nick had pulled aside after James had relayed his story, "do we have any reason to believe he's telling the truth?"  
"Do you see the surgery scars on his neck?" I asked, whispering so our conversation wouldn't be audible to James, "he's the Courier from the Mojave."  
"His whole post-apocalypse apocalypse story doesn't exactly scream 'credible' to me."  
"If he is the Courier, he's seen some shit. Nothing less than Armageddon part two would bring him this far East."  
"August, he's a Courier. He gets paid to deliver things. Why does he care?"  
"Nick, this isn't like you." I shook my head in disbelief, "you usually jump at the chance to help people, regardless of whether they're telling the truth."  
"This is different. If we lead him to the final piece of this genetic bomb, we kill a lot more people than we stand to save."  
I sighed, looking back at James momentarily. He was looking down at his hands, his weapon propped up against the desk.  
He looked tired. That was the only word for it. Tired.  
I sauntered back over to him, pulling up a chair, straddling it.  
"Why are you here James? Why does this matter?"  
"Why does saving lives matter? Is that what you're seriously asking me?" James spat, genuinely disgusted at the question.  
"What I mean is, this was a delivery you made years ago, why does it matter to you now?"  
"I'm guessing you know I'm _the_ Courier. I saw you ogling my scars."  
"They're... unique."  
"Hardly, there were dozens, if not hundred of people with scars like these. I was just the only one to survive the process with all my faculties intact, for some reason."  
"What process?"  
"They took my brain out."  
"...they took your brain out?"  
"And my spine. And my heart. That's irrelevant though. They called us 'lobotomites'. There were masses of them at the Big M.T."  
"So, you single-handedly won back Hoover Dam?"  
"No?" He jerked his head back, "I united a number of factions in the Mojave Wasteland against the remainder of the Legion when they tried seize the Dam."  
"I remember hearing people talk about the Courier and what you did. I wasn't around in 2281, but even down here you made history."  
"You weren't around? Where were you?"  
"I was asleep." I shrugged, "I went to sleep in one century and woke up two later."  
"What?"  
"I was born in the year 2047. When the bombs fell in 2077 my family were rushed into Vault 111, which was some kind of social experiment where they froze us cryogenically."  
"I'm not the only one with a wild backstory, it seems."  
"So, James, you never did explain why this is so important to you." Nick interjected, eager to get the answers he wanted.  
"A few weeks before the Battle of Hoover Dam, I was drawn to a place called The Divide. A man called Ulysses was trying to teach me something, to show me the things I'd forgotten. Curiosity kills and all actions have consequences. I might have just been the delivery boy, but how many people suffer because of the things I get from point A to B."  
"You're doing all this because you feel like you might have delivered something bad."  
"I don't feel like I did, I know I did."  
"So, you tracked it across the country, through countless states?"  
"Yes." He said, confused as to why this seemed so surprising to us, "it's my responsibility."  
"It's just interesting." I shrugged, looking him up and down, "why didn't you stay with the NCR?"  
"The NCR wasn't the way for me. I was offered an official place among the 1st Recon, but I declined. If I enlisted with them, I'd lose my freedom. Willingly, or otherwise. I needed to tidy away all these loose ends first."  
"You consider saving what's left of America from it's next apocalypse 'a lose end'?"  
"What do you call it?"  
"Not that." I laughed wryly, "anyway, what about this search brought you out here to the Commonwealth?"  
"The institute, mainly." He replied, in a matter-of-fact tone, "but it's gone."  
"The Brotherhood have a cloned copy of their mainframe."  
"...why the Brotherhood?"  
"I gave it to them, before I left them."  
"So you were in the Brotherhood of Steel as well as the Minutemen?"  
"I"m also the father of the former head of the institute."  
"what?"  
"Long story."  
"In all honesty, I'm not sure I want to hear it." He waved his hand through the air, "what rank did you get?"  
"Paladin."  
"Same, actually. Though I hear the chapter this far west is far more strict than the Mojave Chapter."  
"Maxson is an ass, honestly."  
"You're friendly with him?"  
"Not... exactly." I breathed in, "I might have had a small falling out with him over a certain other synth named Danse."  
"Doesn't he still live in that dingy bunker?" Nick asked, chipping in.  
"Yes, probably." I snickered, thinking about it, "he likes that place a bit too much, actually."  
"Danse?"  
"We don't know his first name, honestly." I shook my head, "I am inclined to believe it's probably Paladin."  
"You're friends with a man and you don't know his first name?"  
"Yeah, it's like people calling you 'Courier', it's not your name, but it is the only one that matters."  
"Everyone that knows me calls you James."  
"and everyone who doesn't calls you Courier, honestly, what aren't you getting?"  
James rolled his eyes, trying not to voice his evident annoyance. He still needed us to help him, after all.  
I considered my options, knowing full well the Brotherhood definitely wouldn't trust me enough to let me anywhere near the institute data. Paladin Danse wouldn't be able to get in either, that's for sure. I knew that Proctor Ingram owed me a favour, or twenty. She was the one that handled the data, but Maxson, being the Elder, would be a hairs breadth away at any given moment. I'd have to contend with his presence for the entirety of my visit.  
"So, I'm guessing we have to get this data from the Brotherhood." James sighed dramatically, "you're a Paladin. I'm a Paladin. Do you want to go for an infiltration or distraction route?"  
"Maxson might be prick, but he's smarter than that."  
"Is he?" James cocked his head, "is he not the headstrong radical idealist that values his pride more than the people in his command?"  
"I suppose you have a point."  
"If someone speaks to him while another retrieves the data, it could work."  
"Whoever it is, can't be me." I sighed, knowing full well that Maxson would have me watched by someone if he couldn't do it himself.  
"You could turn in Danse." Nick piped up, "or James, could at least."  
"That wouldn't work Nick." I shook my head, unwilling to ask Danse to do that. Not because I knew he wouldn't, but because I knew he would.  
"Deacon?" Nick suggested.  
"Not heard from him since the institute went bang. He's also probably not a synth."  
"What would this 'Maxson' do with Danse, once he'd got him?"  
"He'd execute him."  
"Just like that?"  
"Yes."  
"Could we not just turn you in?" James offered, the cogs obviously whirring in his potentially non-present brain.  
"As a synth?"  
"Yes."  
"How would that work?"  
"How much do you remember of your life... before..."  
"Not much, actually." I confessed, "I remember I was a sniper in the US Military, but my last real memory is the day that the bombs fell. I remember my family."  
"So, it's a plausible conclusion."  
"What do we do when they eventually decide I betrayed them and that they want me dead."  
"Improvise?"  
"Sounds good enough for me, let's go."  
"That's all it took?"  
"No!"  
I stood up, knowing that I might just be named the craziest man in the 23rd century for what I was about to do.  
"Let's go." I said finally, "but we're not telling him I'm a Synth."  
"Then what are we telling him?"  
"We're not telling him anything, we're here to go and join up with the Brotherhood again."  
"Again?" James scoffed, "I technically never left."  
"...you haven't seen your chapter in a decade almost."  
"Irrelevant."  
I walked over to my desk, pulling out my now slightly bent BoS dogtags. I weighed them in my hand. I wasn't sure I was ready for this, but I suppose I'd have to be. Joining up with them again would serve a better purpose than pretending to have betrayed them and then actually doing so. They'd have resources that the Institute never had. They also have a slightly unhealthy obsession with pre-war tech, so if anyone else would be after to the key to unlocking a genetic bomb, it would most likely be them. They'd be interested, at the very least. I've yet to decide if that's a good thing. No one said we had to stay with them indefinitely.  
  
While I prepared for our lovely little outing to see the Brotherhood of Steel, Nick had paid for James to use a room in the Dugout Inn. I knew that I owed my friends a visit before I left, at least for old time's sake. Curie had decided to live in Sanctuary, with Shaun. I wasn't there much anymore and Shaun was getting older. It had been nearly four years since I'd brought him home, and we'd agreed that he'd benefit from a permanent home. Curie wasn't his mother, but she acted like one to him. Even if I couldn't be the perfect father he needed, she would do her best.  
I walked into the Dugout the night before James and I had intended to leave. I found him sat a table in the corner, surveying the entirety of the bar.  
"See anything interesting?"  
"I was just thinking about the significant lack of casinos."  
"Must be difficult, being so far from home."  
"I've never really worked out where home is." He said, looking past all the people in the room, "I found a small village where I was supposedly born. I don't really remember it. It had long been abandoned by the time I got there. I just never quite figured out where I belong."  
"I think every faction in the Mojave would have a different answer to that."  
"That's true." He nodded.  
"Home is where you choose."  
"Where's home to you, then?"  
"Here, really." I smile sadly, "I left behind the time I was born in and I found myself here."  
"What was it like, before the war?"  
"Green." I chuckled nostalgically, "most of it's fuzzy, which a lot of doctors attribute to background radiation and vitamin deficiencies, but I'm not really sure. The world wasn't perfect back then, nowhere close, but there were pockets of beauty in among the chaos."  
"Do you think the world is any better now?"  
"Once you get past all the cutthroat gangs and weird looking mutants, you start to appreciate what this world really is: one that is just trying to be better."  
"When I was at Big M.T., there were robots that were the remnants of some pre-war scientists. How much of them was a part of the human them, I'm not sure. They made it seem like our world was... savage."  
"Oh it is." I said, "but ours was, as well. In so many ways the world you've built out here has surpassed the Old World."  
James sat there in quiet contemplation. The people in this world didn't really know what the human race had had before we destroyed it all in an all-out war. The Courier had never known anything else other than the Wasteland. He didn't long for the serenity and security of Pre-War America where the biggest danger at home was mosquitoes. You don't really know what you've lost until you have to live with his absence. It's not the same when you've always been without it.  
"Either way James, we're making a stop at a small settlement called Sanctuary before we make our way to the Brotherhood. I wanted to see my family before I go."  
"What's Sanctuary?"  
"A settlement that... well... it doesn't matter. My family live there."  
"You have a family? I didn't..."  
"It's alright. I don't see much of them anymore, and truthfully, they're better off without me. I see my son every other week, but he's growing up now. He doesn't need me"  
James didn't say anything else, he just simply remained lost in his own head. After a few hours of sad, almost nostalgic silence I left him to his peace.  
The morning came and we began our journey, for better or for ill.  
  
I hadn't quite considered how wild this quest of ours would become. It still had a while to go, but already I had met the most famous man from the West Coast and we were now working in tandem to stop Armageddon Part 2. Way back when, in the year 2077, waking up in bed with Nora, I never thought I'd be best mates with a robot man or be in a relationship with a once-robot french lady either. Things change.  
You never really realise how much they do until you're in the middle of your most recent escapade and you realise that your entire life is a shitshow.  
  
It's been a good one though, at the very least.


End file.
